Will you be my companion and earn the gun with two mouths in payment ?" "Inkoosi," he said, lifting his hand in salute with a flash of his dark eyes, "you are generous, you honour me.

What is there that I should love better?
Yet," he added, and his face fell, "first I must ask Zikali the Little, Zikali my foster-father." "Oh!" I said, "so you are still tied to the Wizard's girdle, are you ?" "Not so, Macumazahn; but I promised him not long ago that I would undertake no enterprise, save that you know of, until I had spoken with him." "How far off does Zikali live ?" I asked Saduko.
"One day's journeying.

Starting at sunrise I can be there by sunset." "Good! Then I will put off the shooting for three days and come with you if you think that this wonderful old dwarf will receive me." "I believe that he will, Macumazahn, for this reason--he told me that I should meet you and love you, and that you would be mixed up in my fortunes." "Then he poured moonshine into your gourd instead of beer," I answered.
"Would you keep me here till midnight listening to such foolishness when we must start at dawn?
Begone now and let me sleep." "I go," he answered with a little smile.

"But if this is so, O Macumazana, why do you also wish to drink of the moonshine of Zikali ?" and he went.
Yet I did not sleep very well that night, for Saduko and his strange and terrible story had taken a hold of my imagination.

Also, for reasons of my own, I greatly wished to see this Zikali, of whom I had heard a great deal in past years.